I have had psoriasis since I was 14. Essentially, I like to think of psoriasis as me being Wolverine (super fast healing) except that along with healing fast, my skin keeps growing long after the injury/irritation. This creates patches of dead skin hanging out on my body. I usually pick them off, making the patches grow back even stronger than before and spread further. It usually starts on my scalp, then after considerable amounts of stress or drinking it will slowly start showing up on my chest/abdomen.

When the condition is at its worst, I feel like I’m wearing a fat suit: I don’t want anyone to see me, I feel like everyone thinks I’m disgusting, covered in flakes and scales. It’s also incredibly uncomfortable to wear clothing, moving around in general chafes and irritates the already irritated patches. There are creams but they aren’t meant to be used long term and usually patches fade and reappear or move to another spot.

It has been a very difficult to combat the disease, and the only thing that has always worked is Enbrel, an injectable medication. I used to take Enbrel twice a week when I was younger, but eventually I stopped because my psoriasis was pretty much all gone. When I started college it gradually came back and got really bad and eventually I went back on Enbrel. The problem was that the company changed how I injected myself; now instead of a vial to mix and a needle to inject myself with it was an auto injector. Kind of like an EpiPen where I had to push it down on my leg, press a button and in that little chamber of horrors was a terrifying click accompanied with excruciating pain which I had to tolerate for the longest 15 seconds in the world.

I quickly developed a phobia of this “Sureclick Auto Injector” and Noah and I resorted to him forcefully holding me down while I kicked and screamed and cried and pleaded. It was a difficult time. For insurance reasons my dose was lowered and I got to a middle ground of auto-filled but non-auto-inject needles. This was somewhat better, but the pain of injecting was the same if not worse. I couldn’t go through with it. The crippling fear was gone, but I could not push something into me and let it flow in my veins while feeling the pain it caused me.

Luckily, my psoriasis has been gone as of late and so I haven’t had to resort to Enbrel or tanning. I have a tanning package, but only wanted to use it sparingly, you know, cause of the carcinogens and all. But this put a lot of pressure on me. As soon as I began to notice psoriasis patches in early June, I began to tan, but I realized this was only a temporary solution, and didn’t get rid of the psoriasis on my scalp.

The worst thing about this is the amount of stress and fear it instills in me. I know that if I’m stressed I’m encouraging my psoriasis and knowing that I can’t do anything to make myself not stressed makes me more scared and more stressed. It’s a scary feeling, knowing how many terrible things accompany all of it.

Chatroulette is completely reliant on one’s own personal luck. Some people just get dick after masturbating dick while others get actual people quite frequently.

I’m one of those lucky people. In fact, the first time I got on Chatroulette it took me 45 minutes of nexting to see an actual penis!

While I admit there is a majority of people who when I try to talk to them just ask to see my boobs, the really awesome people I meet on there make the whole thing worthwhile.

I’ve met some really great people. Some that if I lived any closer to I would have gladly hung out with them. People who aren’t sketchy in any way; an older man with a family, an awesome girl from Canada, a Russian living in Manhattan, a prankster living in Iceland, even a 90’s child star! Some of these people I could joke around with for hours, and some I had the most interesting conversations with.

There are always going to be creeps and pranksters on the internet, but through my adventures I’ve found that there will always be really great people there too. And those people are worth it, those people will enrich your life because they are likely people you would have never gotten to know in real life, people who you may have walked by on the street but would never stop and talk to.

Have you ever seen someone standing in line waiting for coffee in front of you and asked yourself: “could he/she become my best friend?” Neither have I. But on places like chatroulette.com you can meet complete strangers that share your same quirky affinity towards capybaras (btw, if you have a love for capybaras then we need to talk).

So some time when you’re not queasy, working, in a public place, or in the presence of children (or easily disturbed adults for that matter), go on Chatroulette, test your luck, it should be immediate within a few “Next”‘s what your luck is, and hopefully you’ll meet someone great.

I went to go shopping at PCC with my mom. On the way back to picking up Noah who I left to do work at school I got a little lost (I do that VERY OFTEN, despite having lived in the area for most of my life) and ended up on the wrong freeway. I had the choice to exit the freeway and take the right one or take back roads. I decided to take a longer route to the school than usual. While driving through the suburbs there was a cute adolescent puppy walking along the road. I stopped and he ran right up to me, he had a collar but no tags. I knocked on the nearest door but the guy who answered said he didn’t know where it came from.

I thought it was absolutely adorable and since I was only 10 minutes or less from the school I decided to pick Noah up first and then try to find the owner. On the way back I began to get really intimidated with all the nearby houses, Noah began to suggest we just take it to the pound. I was hoping for fate to guide us to the correct owner. I finally decided to park at a house and while I was asking the neighbors if they knew of the dog a woman ran out right in front of the car with a very worried look on her face. Noah was still at the car and asked if she was missing her dog. She exclaimed “Yes! Thank you!” and told us her son must have let him out before going to basketball practice. She was searching the house for a while and just ran out to search for Baxter (the dog).

It seemed remarkably fateful that we pulled in at the precise time she ran out to find her dog. I could have not picked up Noah first and went from house to house or I could have checked a completely different area. All of the clumsy detours I made created just enough time for the owner to come out right in front of our car. The timing of that whole situation was perfect.